The Body Says No

Another rockin' Saturday night. Just watched the Leafs get smoked by Buffalo, 6-2, which could be the final nail in their coffin for this season. They're not mathematically eliminated yet, but it doesn't look good. They had playing well lately, but captain Mats Sundin hurt his groin in the last game and missed tonight as well, and then second-leading scorer Nik Antropov left early tonight with a knee injury. Doesn't bode well.

Headed out this morning with Molly on a 20-mile run from here to Lynn and back. It was snowing but wasn't too cold, so we figured it wouldn't be a bad run. Unfortunately, the winds really picked up when we got to the water in Swampscott and Lynn and they never went away. We had to battle the whole way back through that raw (mid-30s) weather; it felt like we ran a full marathon instead of 20. I was glad to get it over with, but I had a tough time getting warm the rest of the day.

Shiver me timbers:

• I have to thank my buddy OJ for pointing me to this rare clip of David Letterman's short-lived daytime show from the early '80s, before he hit it big with Late Night. Obviously, his sense of humor was not quite right for daytime viewers. That was the first I'd ever seen of any of those shows; alas, they're not available anywhere for viewing nowadays. I was vaguely aware of the show's existence, but I never saw it at the time because I was in school. Speaking of Letterman, here's a great little viewer mail clip from Late Night.
• The music blogs have been chock full of the South by Southwest coverage this week. For the uninitiated, SXSW is the premiere music industry conference and showcase, featuring hundreds of bands known and unknown, as well as separate tracks for film and online shizz. Back when I worked at Webnoize, I was able to attend the 2000 conference. Even though the apartments we rented were way out of downtown Austin, it was still a blast. I covered a bunch of the panels for Webnoize and worked in our booth a bit, but the best part was going to see bands (we caught, among others, Modest Mouse, Fu Manchu, and the Bevis Frond) and chowing on awesome BBQ at places like the County Line and Stubb's. Austin is a truly great city. I visited my brother there a few times when he was going to law school at the U. of Texas; he even drove in from Houston to catch some bands with us one night in '00. Good times. I don't expect to ever go to SXSW again, unless by some miracle I get a job covering entertainment, but at least I can say I've gone once.
• Speaking of the rock, I'm gearing up to see some good shows in the next couple of weeks. Next week, The Gutter Twins (led by Greg Dulli of Afghan Whigs/Twilight Singers fame and Mark Lanegan of the Screaming Trees, two of my favorite artists) play the Paradise on Tuesday and the Drive-By Truckers are there on Saturday. Then on April 3, I'm going to see Stephen Malkmus (ex-Pavement front dude) at the 'Dise. I've been digging the new albums from all three artists, so these shows should be muy excellente.